Political writer Ryan Lizza is taking a leave of absence from Politico after being accused of orchestrating a harassment and blackmail campaign against his ex-fiancée, New York Magazine star writer Olivia Nuzzi, his employer said Tuesday night.
Lizza, who co-authored the paper’s popular Playbook, and Politico bosses agreed to let him step down while an investigation was conducted into the allegations, which first came to light in a court filing Tuesday.
“POLITICO and Ryan Lizza have mutually agreed that it is in everyone’s best interest for him to step down and take a leave of absence pending an investigation,” the newspaper told The Post in an email.
Nuzzi, 31, claims Lizza, 50, molested her after the couple split — and in the midst of her tryst with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to CNN, which cited court documents.
Lizza denied all allegations in a statement to The Post earlier Tuesday.
He did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday night about the break.
Nuzzi was placed on leave by her employers last month after the dispute between her and Kennedy, 70, was revealed.
The two reportedly had sex with each other during the fling, and sometime earlier this year, Nuzzi and Lizza called off their engagement.
Sources told Page Six last week Nuzzi and Kennedy had “unbelievable” FaceTime sex after chatting via text.
Nuzzi wrote a profile of the descendants of the Democratic dynasty last November.
Nuzzi, in a bombshell court filing unsealed Tuesday, claimed Lizza “explicitly threatened to release personal information about me in order to destroy my life, career and reputation — a threat he has since carried out.” , CNN reported Tuesday.
Nuzzi alleged that Lizza began harassing her in early July to force her back into a relationship with him, and by the next month, he allegedly stole a personal electronic device and hacked into her devices, according to the filing.
He also allegedly anonymously shopped media coverage about her, with some of it possibly “doctored” to hurt her, the filing said.
Nuzzi seemed to suggest that Lizza exposed her tryst with RFK, according to the court filing.
She accused him of potentially, “through a third party or anonymous channel,” leaking information to New York Magazine last month about what she called only “the affair.”
Lizza told The Post earlier Tuesday that he is “saddened that my ex-fiancée would use a series of false accusations against me as a way to deflect attention from her personal and professional failings.”
“I firmly deny these allegations and will defend myself against them vigorously and successfully,” he said.
A no-contact order was reportedly issued by a judge on Tuesday ordering Lizza to stay away from Nuzzi — a common step in domestic disputes, CNN reported.
Lizza was fired from The New Yorker in 2017 for what the publication called “inappropriate sexual contact,” though Lizza at the time pushed back against the claim.
“I am appalled that the New Yorker has decided to characterize a respectful relationship with a woman I dated as somehow inappropriate,” he said at the time, though the woman’s lawyer dismissed the claim as nonsense.
Nuzzi’s legal battle with Lizza comes as her magazine conducts a “more thorough third-party review” of Nuzzi’s work after an internal investigation found no evidence of bias.
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